For the Greeks, the peoples north of their borders spoke a language that the did not understand. To them they babbled to what sounded like bar-bar, which gave rise to the word barbarian, that was then used to designate these foreigners. Later, for the Romans, the Latin term barbarus was applied to foreign peoples who did not speak Latin, did not follow Roman laws, and did not participate in their civilization.
The barbarians who conquered the Western Roman Empire were Germanic tribes who never created culture or civilization, nor were they even interested in creating it. We are talking about the Huns, the Vandals (from which the word vandalism comes from), the Goths, the Franks, the Lombards and the Saxons, and later, already in the Middle Ages, the Vikings. It may seem derogatory to call these peoples barbarians, but they were in fact barbarians, with a very primitive culture compared to the Greco-Roman one, with few human values, and dedicated themselves to destroying, killing, stealing, plundering, and raping.
Since they did not know writing, although it had long been in existence, they were still living in prehistory, around the time of the Iron Age, as Iron was the most important element for their wars. Moreover, their cultural or civilizational development was more than 2,000 years behind the Greco-Roman culture.
Greece could have considered the Roman invasion to be a barbarian invasion since it already had a much more developed culture in general than Rome, although the latter was better at things like state administration, law, and architecture. The Roman invasion of Greece was not regarded as a barbarian invasion by the Greeks because the Romans, although more powerful, were also humbler than the Greeks in not imposing their culture, their religion and not even their language as the Greeks had done on the peoples they conquered.
The Romans accepted the culture of others, respected and were tolerant of their ways and customs, and sometimes even allowed them, as in the case of Galilee, to be ruled by their own kings, provided they paid tribute to Rome. In fact, Rome only enforced its culture on the peoples who did not have one to begin with, as was the case throughout the West. This is why neo-Latin languages are spoken in the West today: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian and 50% of the English language.
In the East, Greek prevailed and was later the language of the Byzantium Empire, or the Eastern Roman Empire, which lasted considerably longer, being supplanted by a politico-religious empire, the Ottoman Empire, which in turn only ended after World War I.
With the fall of the Roman Empire, the Western world was plunged into what English historians call the Dark Ages. Compared to the Ancient Times, the Middle Ages represented a step backwards on all levels. The barbarians who conquered the Empire were only interested in their material wealth, not in building a culture or a civilization. Culture had to take refuge and hide in monasteries, where a Christian version of the ancient world was preserved. The Middle Ages can be seen as a long period during which the Church patiently went about educating these barbarians who held political power, with the Greco-Roman culture it had inherited.
Causes for the Fall of the Roman Empire
Given that the Empire had grown disproportionately immense, it became too difficult to govern. In the third century, Emperor Diocletian split the Empire into two parts: the West with its capital in Rome and the East with its capital in Constantinople or Byzantium. In the short term, this seemed to be a good move to better govern such a vast empire. However, over time, the parts began to diverge; in the West, only Latin was spoken, and in the East, only Greek was spoken. Without enemies, the East grew in power and wealth, while the West gradually withered away, economically as well as militarily.
One of the main causes for the fall of the Western Roman Empire was the invasion of the barbarians, led by the Germanic peoples who lived in the region to the east of the Empire’s borders. Other causes included the decay of the economy based on slaves who worked the land and were artisans, military disintegration as well as military spending on never-ending frontier wars.
The process of the Germanic peoples’ entry into the Roman Empire initially occurred gradually. In the northeast of the Italian Peninsula, the borders of the Roman Empire were demarcated by the Danube and Rhine Rivers. The peoples and tribes that lived beyond these rivers were regarded as Germanic by the Romans.
Since the time of Caesar, the Romans had known of the existence of these peoples. They were organized into clans, did not have a state institution like the Romans, and their laws were based on tradition, transmitted orally, because they did not know writing. They devoted themselves to agriculture and herding. Because of the cold weather in which they lived, they were fearless and fierce. They were warrior peoples, which earned them the reputation of being violent and cruel.
At first, in the spirit of the famous Pax Romana, the Romans established pacts with these tribes; as we said earlier, the Romans were only interested in tribute being paid to Rome, and when the dominated peoples did so, they were granted a high degree of autonomy. However, with the weakening of the central power, these peoples acquired more and more autonomy and independence, becoming true kingdoms that the weakened Rome was powerless to confront.
Around 300 A.D., barbarian groups like the Goths invaded the borders of the Empire. The Romans resisted a Germanic revolt in the late 4th century, but in 410, the Visigoth King Alaric successfully sacked the city of Rome. The Empire spent the next few decades under constant threat, before "the Eternal City" was invaded again in 455, this time by the Vandals.
Finally, in 476, the Germanic leader Odoacer staged a revolt and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus. From then on, no Roman emperor would ever rule again from a post in Italy, leading many to cite 476 as the year in which the Western Empire suffered its mortal blow.
Origin of the Germanic Tribes
The Germanic peoples originated from the plains of Denmark and southern Scandinavia. There are traces of human settlements in this area dating back to the Neolithic period, when men began to control nature, domesticating the land and vegetation as well as some species of animals for their own sustenance.
When we speak of Germanic tribes, we speak of many tribes of which the most important are the Huns, the Vandals, the Goths, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, the Franks, the Lombards, the Saxons and the Anglo-Saxons.
The Vikings were also fundamentally a Germanic tribe that inhabited further north in Scandinavia. They ravaged Europe like pirates during the Middle Ages, when the Germanic tribes were already established, forming the first Kingdoms after the fall of the Roman Empire.
As the Germanic population grew and the Empire weakened, the Germanic peoples began to emigrate in all directions, but more to the south and the west, in search of better lands because theirs were no longer sufficient. The Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Lombards entered Italy; the Vandals, Franks, and Visigoths conquered much of Gaul and the Celts who lived there, and the Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Of these, the Vandals came to settle in North Africa, in Carthage, and the Alans settled along the Rhine and in the Alps.
In Great Britain, the Saxons joined the Angles and other local tribes to form the Anglo-Saxons who dominated England until the Norman conquest in the Middle Ages. The rest of the islands, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland remained mostly Celtic. The Celts were not a Germanic tribe. They had their own culture and inhabited Central Europe. They were the famous inhabitants of Gaul, the Gauls conquered by Julius Caesar. They had also invaded the Iberian Peninsula before the Romans, joining the first peoples who had invaded, the Iberians, from North Africa.
Culture and Organization of the Germanic Tribes
Early Germanic society was characterized by a strict code of ethics, which valued above all trust, loyalty, and courage. Acquiring honor, fame, and recognition was a primary ambition. Independence, autonomy, and individuality were highly emphasized values.
This is probably the reason why the Germanic peoples never constituted a great empire or even a unified Germanic state. The environment in which the Germanic peoples were emerged, namely their connection to the forest and the sea, played an important role in the formation of these values. Germanic oral literature is full of scorn for characters who failed to live up to Germanic ideals.
In the Germanic language, ger-man means the man of the spear. For the Germanic peoples, the loss of the spear or shield was equivalent to the loss of honor. The Germanic peoples were warriors by nature, born in war and for war; from an early age, they were trained in the art of war just like the Spartans. Loyalty and devotion to the clan they belonged to, and through it, to the tribe and its leader, was one of their highest values; this sense of unity won them many victories.
Kingship is therefore a fundamental element that unites Germanic society. As with other peoples, its origin as an institution is sacred, and so the king combines the functions of military leader, high priest, legislator, and judge.
The Germanic monarchy was partly elective; the king was elected by free men from among eligible candidates from a family that could trace its ancestry back to the divine or semi-divine founder of the tribe. Although Germanic society was highly stratified between leaders, free men, and slaves, its culture also emphasized equality. Occasionally, the freemen of the tribe would even overrule the decisions of their own leaders.
Through the influence of the Roman Empire, the power of the Germanic kings over their own people increased over the centuries, in part because the mass migrations at the time required more severe leadership.
Literature
Because the Germanic peoples did not know writing before their encounter with Roman culture, Germanic literature was passed orally from generation to generation. Its content was linked to its main purpose which was to honor the gods or praise tribal ancestors, chieftains, warriors and their associates, wives, and other relatives.
Religion
According to the Roman writer Tacitus, the Germanic peoples worshipped mainly "Mercury", but also "Hercules", and "Mars". These were generally identified with Odin, Thor and Týr, the gods of wisdom, thunder, and war, respectively. They also worshipped the goddesses Nerthus and Freya.
Archaeological discoveries suggest that early Germanic peoples practiced some of the same "spiritual" rituals as the Celts, including human sacrifice, divination, and belief in spiritual connection with their natural surroundings. Like the Romans, there was a difference between domestic worship and communal worship; in the home, the father of the family played the role of a priest.
Religious ceremonies were performed in woods, lakes, and islands considered sacred, not in temples; the Germanic peoples did not build temples to perform their religious rites. For the sacrifices offered to the gods, all kinds of livestock were slaughtered, and sometimes even humans, and the blood was sprinkled over the people who then made toasts to the gods and ate the meat. The victims, both human and animal, were hung from trees. One of the trees in the woods would be the most sacred of all, and underneath it there would be a pit in which a live man would be buried.
No common conception about life after death is known to any Germanic peoples. Some believed that the fallen hero warriors would go to Valhalla to live happily with Odin, while the evil ones could pursue the living after they were dead; if that were to happen, they would have to be killed more than once to stop pursuing the living. This is probably where the "Game of Thrones" series was inspired to create the "Walkers", the undead who had to be killed by fire to stay dead.
After the conquest of the Roman Empire, the Germanic peoples gradually converted to Christianity at different periods: the Goths in the 4th century, the Saxons in the 6th and 7th centuries, under pressure from the already converted Franks; the Danes, under German pressure, in the 10th century. Paganism held out longer in the northernmost lands, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.
Conclusion: Despite lagging more than 2000 years behind the Greco-Roman cultural development and civilization, the Germanic peoples contributed to medieval Europe with their values of autonomy, independence, and freedom, based on the principle that we are all equal in dignity.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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